DE10260126A1 - Communication architecture station - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a device for integrating IP (Internet Protocol) -based communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations. DOLLAR A In addition to a low base load formed by communication relationships with little priority, spontaneous event-oriented communication needs with reliable process reliability should receive a qualitatively and quantitatively sufficient allocation of resources. At the same time, the communication costs for collecting and distributing information from and to decentralized traffic stations must be significantly reduced, so that even less frequented decentralized locations can be connected. This is achieved in that the communication subsystems (2.a, 2.b, 2.c) of the traffic station by means of logical and / or physical end points (5.a, 5.b, 5.c) in a higher-level workflow and management system (4) are integrated in the central instance, the communication endpoints (5.a, 5.b, 5.c) are connected to a resource management system (6) that manages and allocates the bandwidth of the shared network infrastructure, and the resource management system ( 6) is connected to a management system (7) at the central level, from which it retrieves a conflict resolution decision in the event of competing allocation requests from the communication endpoints.

Description

The invention relates to a device for the integration of IP (Internet Protocol) based communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations.

For cost and efficiency reasons, the operational processes in the area-wide branched track-guided means of transport Always stronger centralized and automated. This is off the big one hub stations less and less local Staff available, which in the past - in addition its actual activities - the traveler Customers also as contacts in the event of irregularities of any kind available could stand. As a consequence, Deutsche Bahn AG operates now in all major of you serve traffic stations designed as control centers (Operations center station or brand "3S headquarters"), at which all for the travelers with regard the current situation in rail traffic and in the operation of the traffic station important Information collected, processed and using customer information systems (Monitors, scoreboards, loudspeaker announcements, answering by telephone Customer inquiries etc ...) made available to travelers again become. These traffic centers are also the reporting and coordination point for customer-relevant building irregularities (e.g. function monitoring of the Heating and air conditioning systems, fire and intrusion detection systems Etc...). Analogue fields of application can of course also be found at other facilities, the information from decentralized at the field level distributed end devices, Record sensors etc., process them in a central location and via decentralized Provide distributed display or output devices again. For example be both the information systems of urban transport companies or on Airports just like the surveillance and control centers in the building automation sector (high-rise buildings, shopping centers, Fair ...) called.

As a specialty in the field of In addition, rail traffic means that the traffic stations with large Distance to each other are distributed in the area and not for reasons of economy using broadband communication channels or even proprietary transmission channels (In-house or campus networks) to the respective supervising and coordinating Central station in the nearest larger Node station can be connected.

Almost parallel to the concentration and rationalization in rail operations has the Internet to an ubiquitous Part of almost all industrial and commercial processes developed. There is therefore a great need to capacity to increase this communication medium and the associated Cost advantages for those communication solutions to make usable, which were previously reserved for other transmission media were.

In the past, the internet was primarily a medium for transmission of text-based data, e.g. Text files. For largely efficient transmission preferably Large amounts of data were therefore primarily burst mode transmission types ( "Burst mode ") and used. Especially in the transmission of voice or video data, as is usually the case with centralized system monitoring or customer information systems incurred, achieve such transmission types however, their limits very quickly. Both voice and video data have very different characteristics and accordingly represent different ones Requirements for their respective transmission routes. The voice transmission over the Internet ("Voice over IP "or VOIP) is very sensitive about those that occur in packet-based or internet-based transmission processes Latency and data loss issues. The video data transmission on the other hand, this turns out to be the case more robust, needed however, because of the large amount of data, significantly larger transmission bandwidths.

For the economic operation of geographically extensive networks with many decentralized device locations and a high proportion to be transmitted Is audio and / or video data streams it is of crucial importance, even with the smallest transmission capacities defined quality standard guarantee to be able to.

Control centers, monitoring systems or similar devices are usually implemented with spatially narrowly defined action areas. Accordingly, the transmission media used here are designed for comparatively short distances. DE 44 02 779 discloses, for example, a remote monitoring device for petrol stations, the physical coupling of which takes place via fieldbus systems (eg LON, "Local Operating Network").

Previous approaches to solving the allocation of resources between competing data streams on IP networks, on the other hand, have essentially concentrated on automated, independent processes that aim to achieve the highest possible data throughput and the highest possible utilization of the existing cable routes. For example, reveal DE 101 61 135 and DE 101 61 136 the use of dynamic release rates that are based on adaptive threshold values. This is to avoid unfavorable levels of utilization of the transmission paths caused by resource allocations to competing data streams that are too static. However, such a method is optimized for mass traffic with correspondingly high transmission volumes and loses communication structures, which are rather limited in terms of volume and primarily oriented to events or individual cases, its efficiency.

Furthermore, is out DE 198 49 784 a method is known in which an additional bidirectional access channel with a low transmission rate is set up to improve the allocation of transmission resources during the establishment of a packet-based or internet-oriented connection, via which request information is directed to a central resource instance, or an allocation information to the requesting decentralized Facility is submitted. However, this procedure has also expressly set itself the goal of ensuring that network resources are allocated to all communication participants as equally as possible. However, the goal of equal resource allocation is not compatible with real-time requirements. As a result, the configurations known to date for integrating IP-based voice / video data on operational control centers under real-time requirements are not suitable.

The invention has for its object a Establishment for the integration of IP (Internet Protocol) based Communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations to develop that - alongside a low base load due to low priority communication relationships - with reliable Process reliability spontaneous and event-oriented communication relationships with qualitatively and quantitatively sufficient resource allocation can build up. At the same time for the Collecting and distributing information from and to the decentralized Traffic stations only communication channels with the lowest possible Data transfer rates that can be ordered on the market be used, so that a connection of less frequented decentralized locations is economically possible.

This task is linked with the preamble of claim 1 according to the invention solved, that the communication subsystems by means of logical and / or physical Endpoints into a parent Workflow and management system of the central instance are integrated, the communication endpoints to a the bandwidth of the common used network infrastructure managing and allocating resource management system are connected, and the resource management system to a management system of central level, from which it is competing in the event Allocation requests from the communication endpoints a conflict resolution decision retrieves.

By introducing a particularly simple structured escalation level in the event of resource conflicts it is advantageously possible despite the minimal line capacities, a fast, situation-appropriate and reliable Allocation of resources for event-oriented communication needs with real-time requirements to ensure and thus a reliable basis for the employee in the control center for the to give necessary decisions and operating actions.

Further advantageous configurations the inventive Device are the subclaims refer to.

The inventive concept is as follows embodiment visualized. In principle, it shows:

1 Arrangement diagram of the traffic control center of a train station

2 Sequence diagram for escalation to management system (MMS) with non-assignable transmission resource

• – Service-Sicherheit-Sauberkeit (3-S) Diese Anwendung koordiniert alle Aktivitäten von Bahnhofsmitarbeitern, die im Zusammenhang mit der Aufrechterhaltung bzw. Wiederherstellung eines ordnungsgemässen und kundenfreundlichen Betriebes der Verkehrsstationen stehen (z.B. Reinigungsdienste, Wach- und Streifendienste, Servicemitarbeiter für Auskunft auf dem Bahnsteig, Gepäckträgerdienste etc.). Mittels ferngesteuerter Videoanlagen können räumliche Bereiche optisch fernüberwacht werden; mittels dezentraler Sprechstellen (Notruf-Informationssäulen, NIS) können Reisende Informationsanrufe und Notrufe an den Leitstand übermitteln.
• – Reisendeninformationssystem (RIS) Diese Anwendung informiert die Reisenden über die Ist-Situation des Bahnbetriebes, insbesondere über Abweichungen vom Sollzustand (Verspätungen, geänderte Zugläufe, geänderte Wagenreihungen etc.). Als Ausgabegeräte dienen optische Anzeigen (Monitore, Anzeigetafeln) sowie akustische Durchsagen.
• – Technisches Gebäudemanagement (TGM) Diese Anwendung integriert die Steuer- und Überwachungseinrichtungen der technischen Gebäudeausrüstung der Verkehrsstation. In der Bahnhofszentrale werden insbesondere die für den Kundenverkehr relevanten Meldungen aus der Feldebene entgegengenommen (z.B. Ausfall von Fahrstühlen bzw. Rolltreppen, Ausfall Klimatisierung bzw. Heizung etc.). Im wesentlichen werden Steuersignale von einer dezentralen Sensor-Ebene entgegengenommen.

In the traffic control center of a train station, various communication subsystems (a, b, c) are linked to a central operational control center ( 1 ), which also controls the interface of these sub-application systems for communication with their decentralized input and output devices via a shared communication infrastructure. These communication subsystems (a, b, c) are the individual sub-applications:

• - Service-Sicherheit-cleanliness (3-S) This application coordinates all activities of station employees, which are connected with the maintenance or restoration of a proper and customer-friendly operation of the traffic stations (e.g. cleaning services, security and patrol services, service employees for information on the Platform, porter services etc.). Spatial areas can be optically remotely monitored using remote-controlled video systems; decentralized call stations (emergency call pillars, NIS) allow travelers to send information calls and emergency calls to the control center.
• - Passenger information system (RIS) This application informs travelers about the current situation of rail operations, in particular about deviations from the target state (delays, changed train paths, changed wagon rows, etc.). Optical displays (monitors, scoreboards) and acoustic announcements serve as output devices.
• - Technical building management (TGM) This application integrates the control and monitoring equipment of the technical building equipment of the traffic station. In the central station, the messages relevant to customer traffic from the field level are received (e.g. failure of elevators or escalators, failure of air conditioning or heating, etc.). Control signals are essentially received from a decentralized sensor level.

Since it is particularly RIS and TGM The work processes of the traffic control center should not intervene directly in existing and specified sub-application systems. The traffic center therefore has its own workflow application system ( 4 ), which, as a software component, allows a free definition of the processes for handling work tasks in the traffic control center. The individual sub-application systems therefore each have their own end devices and data processing servers and only exchange with the central instance of the traffic control center in accordance with those in the workflow application system ( 4 ) made data from (communication flows, 2 ).

The traffic center usually has one stellate Topology at which the regional traffic stations at the associated central node station are connected by means of data lines. The transmission resources of this Data lines are dependent on the operational importance of the connected regional traffic station adapted, but with a capacity of usually approx. 1024 kbit / s in their performance very limited.

With the help of an audio system can recordings of conversations of the control center operator with Callers (emergency call, information) are generated. An information retrieval The system is used for archiving and case-by-case statistical processing of the processes recorded. additionally has the control center operator access to the company's intranet, through which access to other Databases (e.g. management of found objects, management of pronounced ones House references etc.) is realized.

At the heart of the station's headquarters, however, is a resource management system ( 6 ) that manages the bandwidth of the available network infrastructure, especially for voice and video data communication. The sub-application systems (a, b, c) have communication endpoints ( 5.a . 5.b . 5.c ), which is integrated into the workflow application system of the traffic center and to the resource management system ( 6 ) are connected. In principle, the different endpoints can establish several communication connections at the same time. To do this, they must use the resource management system ( 6 ) first request the allocation of network resources.

In the basic use case, a communication end point of a sub-application system ( 5 ) via the resource management instance ( 6 ) by means of a request (AllocateResourceRequest; ARR) to a certain bandwidth. The ARR contains a transaction ID for unique identification, since a sub-application can generate several requests. The communication endpoint ( 5 ) addresses the request with the priority desired for the resource type (audio, video) and the necessary bandwidth information to the resource management system ( 6 ), which reserves the requested bandwidths via classes - based on the classes defined in the network design with Diff-Serv. The resource management system ( 6 ) processes the request within a preconfigurable time (e.g. 100 ms) and checks whether it can be fulfilled. If the requested bandwidth is available, an allocation (AllocateResourceAcknowledge; ARA) is used to allocate it. The response is provided with an error code and the assignable bandwidth in relation to the transaction ID sent. A positive confirmation of the request (ErrorCode = 0) allows the communication end point ( 5 ) use the resource for an unlimited period in advance. After the end of the communication relationship, the bandwidth used is released by a message from the communication endpoint ( 5 ) to the resource management system ( 6 ) (FreeResourceRequest; FRR). The resource management system ( 6 ) registers this bandwidth again as freely available and answers this release (FreeResourceAcknowledge; FRA) within a preconfigurable time period T (eg 100 ms), an error code also qualifying the execution here. A negative answer to the request ARR (ErrorCode # 0) leads to the termination of the process and must be started from the communication endpoint ( 5 ) to be edited. The synchronous order of the calls is guaranteed.

While using a resource through a communication endpoint ( 5 ) exists for the resource management system ( 6 ) the possibility from the communication endpoint ( 5 ) force the release of the entire bandwidth used by an application or the partial release of the bandwidth used by an application. The resource management system signals ( 6 ) to the communication endpoint ( 5 ) for which transaction a total or partial return of resources has to be made (AllocateChangeRequest; ACR). The requested communication endpoint ( 5 ) confirms the return, specifying the error code and quality information (AllocateChangeAcknowledge; ACA). In both cases, the magnitude of the bandwidth to be released as well as that of the released bandwidth are communicated by parameterizing the commands.

Once the resource management system ( 6 ) one from a communication endpoint ( 5 ) the requested bandwidth within a traffic class (traffic class, e.g. video) cannot be promised, the resource management system escalates ( 6 ) to the higher-level management system (MMS) and requests a decision (escalation request; ESR). The resource management system ( 6 ) provides information about the transaction, traffic class and the priority with which the request was made. In addition, the MMS is sent a list of all current transactions in the traffic class concerned. The individual entries in the list describe the names of the communication partners (DNS names) and the priority of the associated communication relationship for each transaction. The MMS then decides whether one of the transactions from the list can be determined to be dropped. In this case, dropping is to be understood to mean that the dropping off must be carried out by one of the two communication partners; the MMS does not intervene in the communication relationship. The MMS shares the resource management system ( 6 ) together with the specification of the transaction ID initiating the request, the communication partner to be rejected if necessary (Escalation Acknowledge; ESA).

1

central Instance of the traffic center

2

data stream a communication subsystem

3

decentralized terminals a communication subsystem

4

workflow system the central authority

5

endpoints of the communication subsystems

6

Resource Management System (Resource Control System)

7

management system the central authority

a

Communication subsystem Traveler Information

b

Communication subsystem Service, security, cleanliness

c

Communication subsystem building management

ARR

inquiry Allocate Resource Request

ERA

Confirmation of resource allocation (Allocate Resouce Acknowledge)

FRR

Return resource allocation (Free Resource Request)

FRA

Confirmation of resource return (Free Resource Acknowledge)

ACR

change request for assigned Resource (Allocate Change Request)

ACA

Confirmation of changed resource allocation (Allocate Change Acknowledge)

ESR

inquiry Escalation request

ESA

feedback Escalation Acknowledge

EP

review process (Evaluation Process)

Claims (4)

Device for integrating IP (Internet Protocol) -based communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations, characterized in that the communication subsystems ( 2.a . 2 B . 2.c ) using logical and / or physical endpoints ( 5.a . 5.b . 5.c ) in a higher-level workflow and management system ( 4 ) of the central instance are integrated, the communication endpoints ( 5.a . 5.b . 5.c ) to a resource management system that manages and allocates the bandwidth of the shared network infrastructure ( 6 ) and the resource management system ( 6 ) to a management system ( 7 ) is connected to the central level, from which it retrieves a conflict resolution decision in the event of competing allocation requests from the communication endpoints. Device for integrating communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations according to claim 1, characterized in that the communication subsystems ( 2.a . 2 B . 2.c ) include at least one information system for displaying operating states and / or deviations from target states. Device for integrating communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations according to at least one of claims 1 to 2, characterized in that the communication subsystems ( 2.a . 2 B . 2.c ) include at least one system for remote monitoring and / or remote diagnosis of operating states. Device for integrating communication subsystems in a central instance of traffic stations according to at least one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the communication subsystems ( 2.a . 2 B . 2.c ) comprise at least one telecontrol system for controlling spatially distant actuators.